The National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE) announced its $5 million program on October 4, 1993, at the Mount Gilead Baptist Church in Washington, DC, “to underscore the connection between addressing issues of poverty and the environment.”(1) The Partnership is a formal agreement among four of the nation’s largest religious organizations:

• U.S. Catholic Conference
• National Council of Churches of Christ
• Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life
• Evangelical Environmental Network.

Although not a full partner, the Union of Concerned Scientists is identified in a special “consultative” relationship, and the NRPE has established an office in their headquarters. The NRPE is presently engaged in mailing “education and action kits” to 67,300 religious congregations which ultimately reaches 100-million church-goers. Paul Gorman, Executive Director of the Partnership, says: “…how people of faith engage the environmental crisis will have much to do with the future well-being of the planet, and in all likelihood, with the future of religious life as well.”(2)

Gorman’s comment may prove to be the understatement of the century. The objectives of the NRPE are nothing less than the transformation of social order into a global society organized around the notion that the earth itself is the giver of life, and that all the world’s religions are evolving into a state of enlightenment that recognizes Gaia as the true source of life and spirituality, and is the only relevant object of worship. In order to fully appreciate the scope and significance of the NRPE, it is necessary to examine its origin, trace its development, and explore the motivation and philosophy of the individuals who brought the idea to fruition.
In the beginning…

The Temple of Understanding, housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, was founded in 1960 by Juliet Hollister and a prestigious group of “Founding Friends” which included: H.H. the XIV Dalai Lama, Jawaharlal Nehru, H.H. Pope John XXIII, Eleanor Roosevelt, Anwar el-Sadat, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, UN Secretary-General U Thant, and others. The Temple developed a series of “Spiritual Summit Conferences” that met in Calcutta (1968), Geneva (1970), Harvard and Princeton Universities (1971), Cornell University (1974) and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City (1984). The Temple also convened a conference on Mount Sinai in October of 1984 to “thrash out an inter-religious consensus,” for which Dr. Robert Muller, Assistant UN Secretary-General, and author of New Genesis, was asked to draft a “Declaration of the Unity of World Religions.”(3) In 1988, the Temple co-founded the “Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival,” an unprecedented event sponsored jointly with the UN Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. The Forum met in Oxford, England in 1988, and again in Moscow in 1990.(4) The Temple was also instrumental in creating the “North American Interfaith Network” which held international conferences in Wichita in 1987 and in Seattle in 1990.

The UN Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development was created in 1982 with funding support from the UN Population Fund, and a special trust fund established by the UN Development Program “to provide information on global survival issues to parliamentarians, spiritual leaders and the media, and to fund network meetings at national, regional and global levels.”(5) It is significant that twelve individuals listed on the Board of Directors or Advisors of the Temple of Understanding are also listed as members of the Global Forum Council, including the Very Reverend James Parks Morton who is Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, President of the Temple of Understanding, and co-chair of the Global Forum Council.

The featured speaker at the 1988 Forum in Oxford, England was James Lovelock, author of The Ages of Gaia. He told the audience:
“On Earth, she [Gaia] is the source of life everlasting and is alive now; she gave birth to humankind and we are a part of her.”(6)
Lovelock’s gaia hypothesis first appeared in 1979 and evolved into Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth, published by Oxford Press in 1982. The gaia hypothesis contends that the earth itself is a living organism, the source of all life, and which has the capacity to regulate, or “heal” itself under “natural” conditions. Lovelock’s contention is that the human species has developed the technology to overwhelm gaia’s capacity to “heal” itself, and is therefore doomed to destruction unless the human species stops its technological assault. He told the Forum that global warming is the result of the human assault on the earth, and likened it to a fever in humans, but is worried that humans are not allowing gaia to recuperate. He said:

“She may be unable to relax because we have been busy removing her skin and using it as farm land, especially the trees and forests of the humid tropics…we are also adding a vast blanket of greenhouse gases to the already feverish patient.”(7)

The 1990 Forum in Moscow featured Mikhail Gorbachev and then-UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar. It was sponsored by the Supreme Soviet and the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, along with the Temple of Understanding and the UN Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. Gorbachev said “Perestroika has changed our view of ecology; only through international efforts can we avert tragedy.” He called for each nation to produce state-of-the-environment reports at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. He reiterated an earlier call for a UN “green cross,” an international emergency task force that could be rushed to the scene of an ecological disaster.(8) Transportation was provided to invited participants free of charge by Aeroflot, and local expenses were paid by the host country. The primary thrust of the Forum was to explore the role the news media could play in promoting global survival, “and especially sustainable development.” More than 50 international journalists, 20 international business leaders, scientists, including Carl Sagan, and selected leaders of the arts and cultural community were invited to join 700 spiritual and parliamentary leaders.(9)

Carl Sagan led 22 other noted scientists in an appeal for science and religion to “join hands” in a new ecological alliance. More than 100 religious leaders endorsed the appeal. James Parks Morton, co-chair of the Forum, said “We welcome the scientists’ Appeal and are eager to explore as soon as possible concrete, specific forms of collaboration and action. The Earth itself calls us to new levels of joint commitment.”(10) Other religious leaders who signed the Appeal document, included: Elie Wiesel; sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, the Grand Mufti of Fyria and co-chair of the Forum; Joseph Cardinal Bernadin, Archbishop of Chicago; the Reverend Theodore Hesburgh, President Emeritus of Notre Dame University; Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation; Jain leader Acharya Sushil Kumarji Maharaj; The Reverend Ronald F. Thiemann, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School; and the Reverend Dr. Milton B. Efthimiou, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America.

Among the scientists launching the appeal were James Hansen of NASA (whose testimony before the U.S. Senate brought global warming to public attention); Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University; Mohammed Kassas of the University of Cairo; Motoo Kimura of Japan’s National Institute of Genetics; Sir Frederick Warner of Exxes University; and Jerome B. Wiesner of MIT.(11)
Five months after the Moscow Forum, a similar conference was held in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the North American Conference on Religion and Ecology (NACRE), described in conference literature as an “Inter-faith organization designed to help the North American religious community enter into the environmental movement in the 1990s.” The program featured HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and President of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Russell Train, Chairman of the WWF-US, Carl Sagan, Cornell University, Jessica Mathews, Director of Global Issues of the National Security Council and editorial board member of The Washington Post, Lester Brown, President of Worldwatch Institute; and Brian Swimme, co-author with Thomas Berry of The Universe Story.

NACRE President, Donald B. Conroy, said the conference, entitled “Caring for Creation,” was “an introduction to congregational habitat,” which will provide resource materials for local congregations, “the first steps of an environmental ministry.”(12)
Paul Gorman, former Vice President of public affairs of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, then-Director of the Temple of Understanding’s Joint Appeal, led a coalition of 200 local environmental organizations in 1990 to assist in the election of Mayor David Dinkins. The Coalition invited then-Senator Al Gore to a breakfast symposium with its members before he delivered the Sunday sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.(13) Senators Al Gore, Tim Wirth, John Heinz, and James Jeffords, then arranged an October, 1990 Congressional breakfast in Washington which led to a decision to expand the Joint Appeal to “initiate environmental programs, to measure interest in grass roots religious environmental activity, and to facilitate formal consultations between religious leaders and scientists.”(14)
In June, 1991, another meeting of the religious leaders, scientists and members of Congress was convened. At the end of the gathering, they concluded: “We believe a consensus now exists, at the highest level of leadership across a significant spectrum of religious traditions, that the cause of environmental integrity and justice must occupy a position of utmost priority for people of faith.”(15) Eleven chief executive officers of major national environmental groups sent a letter endorsing the program, “particularly in our efforts to support struggles for environmental justice by poor, minority and indigenous peoples.” Among the groups were: the National Audubon Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the World Resources Institute.

The four major partners of the NRPE met on May 11, 1992 and agreed to a three-year program. The first year was devoted to fund-raising which produced an initial $3 million. Program activity began in late September, 1993. The formal announcement in a black church in the ghettos of Washington, D.C., was followed by a day-long celebration a few days later featuring a press conference by Vice President Al Gore who said the NRPE “will trigger the beginning of grassroots activity in tens of thousands of religious congregations across the country.” Other dignitaries celebrating the event included: James P. Morton, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, who praised Gore “for the role he played in bringing the partnership to life;” Chancellor Ismar Schorsch of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America; Bishop James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio; Reverend W. Franklyn Richardson, general secretary of the National Baptist Convention; and representatives from the National Association of Evangelicals; World Vision; Sojourners; the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship; the AuSable Institute; and Carl Sagan, who said:

“…separately, neither science nor religion could solve the problem of redeeming the environment from the shortsightedness of the last few decades.”(16)

* * * * * * *

The program seeks to “broaden exponentially the base of mainstream commitment, integrate issues of social justice and environment, and urge behavioral change in the lives of congregants.” Specific goals include:

Distribution of education and action kits to 67,300 congregations (including every Catholic parish plus every Reform and Conservative synagogue in the nation) for three successive years;

Clergy and lay leadership training programs;

Legislative updates, testimony and action alerts, with highest priority given to issues of “environmental justice;”

Preparation of environmental curriculum for every Jewish seminary;
Teleconferences and videos for Catholic dioceses, parishes and schools.(17)

Education and Action kits are prepared for each faith, and each denomination. NRPE literature provides a telephone number for ordering the kits. The NRPE has also developed a 171-page directory of congregations and organizations that are involved in “environmental programs” in cooperation with the partnership.
A January 23, 1996, mailing by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America provides insight into the “education and action” sponsored by the NRPE. The letter, signed by Kristin D. Sundell, Advocacy Associate for Environmental Concerns, accompanies a bulletin insert and an action alert about the Endangered Species Act. The letter says, “This Noah’s Ark is under attack by persons in the current Congress….The efforts of the religious community are key to its survival.” The action alert in the package claims that “Many scientists estimate that one quarter of the world’s species could be lost within the next 50 years.” Such claims are grossly exaggerated according to Julian L. Simon and Aaron Wildavsky, in an article published by the National Wilderness Institute. The best scientific studies reveal that the extinction rate between 1600 and 1900 is one species every four years. Since 1900 until the present, the best studies estimate that about one species per year has become extinct. There is virtually no scientific evidence to support the claims made in the action alert.(18)

The alert also claims that the Endangered Species Act “has been successful in protecting and recovering many species.” Again, the action alert is wrong: “…after twenty years, no species has been legitimately recovered and delisted primarily as a result of efforts taken pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.”(19) The alert said the bills before Congress should be opposed because they would (1) overturn the Supreme Court decision, Babbitt v. Sweet Home, (2) require landowners to be paid for complying with the ESA, (3) allow the Secretary of the Interior to “choose extinction,” and (4) increase bureaucracy and delay. The analysis failed to explain that the Supreme Court decision substantially expanded the definition of “harm” in the ESA, to include not only the endangered species, but also to include the habitat that a species might use. Such judicial expansion beyond the intent of Congress gives the federal government the power to declare virtually any land to be the potential habitat of an endangered or threatened species, sub-species, or population, and thereby prohibit the land owner from using his own land, whether or not an endangered species, sub-species, or population has ever been seen on the property.
The analysis failed to recognize the 5th Amendment imperative that requires the government to pay just compensation for private property when taken from individuals for the “public good.” The analysis says instead, that payment for a regulatory “takings” “…ignores the responsibility of all landowners for the common good and creates a costly entitlement program.”

The alert package includes sample letters to Congress which oppose changes to the Endangered Species Act along with an appeal to “support our biblical covenant to ‘be stewards, protectors, and defenders of all creation.'” The admonition includes this:

“God has woven creation together like a beautiful and marvelously intricate fabric. Human greed and exploitation, however, are pulling the threads out of this fabric one by one. As many as 75 to 100 species are becoming extinct each day. If that trend continues it will only be a matter of time before the entire fabric unravels and the ecosystem collapses around us.”

The final item in the packet is this prayer by St. Basil the Great (329-379):

“O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, even our brothers and sisters the animals, to whom you have given the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised our high dominion with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to you in song, has been a groan of pain. May we realize that they live, not for us alone, but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life.”

The Legislative Update, also provided in the “education and action kit,” (Volume IX, Issue 1, February, 1996) praises Clinton’s veto of the Republican Comprehensive Welfare Reform proposal. Another article is headlined “Budget cuts disproportionately affect the hungry,” and calls on readers to “continue to express your concern….” Another article is entitled “Availability of housing for poor at risk,” and readers are told “advocacy is needed on these issues.” Still another article advises “anti-family and anti-refugee provisions remain in House [immigration] bills.” Kristin Sundell, author of the ESA action alert, also has an article entitled “Help stop the attack on endangered species.” The article repeats the incorrect information about the number of species going extinct each day (75 to 100), and tells readers that protection of endangered species “is not a matter to be decided by politics or economics alone. Rather, the protection of God’s creation is a profoundly spiritual issue.” Ironically, Sundell has no problem inciting congregants to use the federal government to enforce the “spiritual issue” of endangered species, while another article on the same page opposes laws that would allow school prayer.

It is more than coincidence that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America uses an “education and action kit” that closely parallels the Clinton/Gore program. As a part of the Evangelical Environmental Network, a full partner in the NRPE, its message is heavily influenced and coordinated by professionals who have close ties to the Clinton/Gore administration. The Lutheran “education and action kit,” containing the endangered species action alert, was mailed on January 23, 1996. On January 31, 1996, a press release was issued by Fenton Communications, with the headline:

“Evangelicals Kick Off Million-Dollar Campaign to Protect Endangered Species.” Here it is necessary to look behind the headlines, behind the scenes, and examine the sources of funds and the loyalties of individuals.

Fenton Communications is the Washington Public Relations firm hired by the Natural Resources Defense Council to develop the campaign against Alar that devastated a portion of the apple industry. On February 26, 1989, nearly 50 million people watched Ed Bradley of CBS’s 60 Minutes, tell America that “The most potent cancer-causing agent in our food supply is a susbstance sprayed on apples to keep them on the trees longer and make them look better.”(20) The report, and the entire campaign, was based on a report produced by the Natural Resources Defense Council entitled Intolerable Risk: Pesticides in our Children’s Food. Ed Bradley’s statement and the NRDC report were clearly wrong. The EPA had already rejected the flawed studies on which the NRDC report was based.

“Extensive studies carried out with scrupulous attention to scientific protocol have failed to find any credible evidence that Alar causes cancer. Extrapolating to humans from the NRDC mouse tests, a person would have to eat 28,000 pounds of apples every day for 70 years to produce tumors similar to those suffered by mice exposed to megadoses of Alar. What the NRDC did not include in its well publicized attack on Alar was that mice fed half the maximum amount — which would equal a man’s eating 14,000 pounds of apples a day for 70 years — produced no tumors at all.”(21)
Neither accuracy nor truth were objectives of the Fenton-NRDC campaign. The objective was simply to get Alar banned, regardless of the estimated $300 million cost to many apple growers, and regardless of the unwarranted fear instilled in the American people.
Fenton Communications has left its fingerprint on several public relations campaigns that might be called less than honorable: an “Ancient Forest Campaign,” funded by the Rockefellers’ Environmental Grantmakers Association, as well as campaigns for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Andreas Papandreau of Greece, and the People’s Republic of Angola.(22)

Fenton’s client for the endangered species campaign was apparently the Environmental Information Center, not the Evangelical Environmental Network. Stan LeQuire, Director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, told The Washington Post that the Environmental Information Center had been asked to help set up the January 31 news conference because “We’re not politically skilled.”(23)

The Environmental Information Center’s Board of Directors includes Francis C. Beineke of the NRDC; Donald K. Ross of the Rockefeller Family Fund and coordinator of the Environmental Grantmakers Association; and Thomas A. Wathen of the Pew Charitable Trusts. The Executive Director is Philip E. Clapp, former employee of Senator Timothy Wirth, and a member of the National Steering Committee of Environmentalists for the Clinton/Gore Campaign. Arlie Schardt is a media coordinator, a former employee of the Environmental Defense Fund and Press Secretary of the Al Gore for President Campaign. Mike Casey is the Media Relations Director who joined the EIC directly from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. EIC Communications Director, Peter Kelley, came from the League of Conservation Voters, whose former President, Bruce Babbitt, is now the Secretary of Interior, and whose Political Action Committee contributes 96% of its funds to Democratic candidates.(24) This cast of characters operating behind the scenes, explains why the Evangelical Environmental Network’s literature so closely follows the Clinton/Gore agenda. Bruce Babbitt told a reporter for The Oregonian:

“When God directed Noah to build the ark, the commandment was to take all the creatures of the Earth aboard, not just those useful to mankind.”(25)

Babbitt is making and implementing public policy based on his biocentric interpretation of the Bible.

A broader agenda

The Clinton/Gore agenda, is but a small part of a much broader global agenda being advanced by the NRPE. The 230 organizations that participate in the Evangelical Environmental Network are hardly one battalion in the army of foot-soldiers marching in the parade toward a global green gaia-religion that seeks to swallow up all the world’s religions into a single, unified “earth ethic” administered and enforced through global governance.

Such a notion is incomprehensible to Christians, especially those who feel the need to protect the environment, and those who are caught up in the appeal of the NRPE. Examination of the ideas of those who brought the NRPE into existence, however, reveals how each program of the Evangelical Environmental Network is but another step toward the inevitable objective pursued by the organizers of the NRPE.

Meet Dr. Robert Muller, a member of the Board of Advisors to the Temple of Understanding; a former Assistant Secretary-General to three UN Secretary-Generals, Chancellor of the UN University, author of the World Core Curriculum, and founder of the Robert Muller Schools. Muller described his religious views to an audience in Costa Rica in 1989:

“We thought at the time that the sun was turning around the earth until we learned from Copernicus that it was not true. Now we’re learning that perhaps this planet has not been created for humans, but that humans have been created for the planet. We hear now of the Gaia hypothesis, of the interdependence of all inert and living matter, that we are part and parcel of a living planetary organism. We are temporary living manifestations or incarnations of this Earth. We are living Earth. Each of us is a cell, a perceptive nervous unit of the Earth. The living consciousness of the Earth is beginning to operate through us. You as cosmic and earth cells, are part of a vast biological and evolutionary phenomenon which is of first importance at this stage, namely humanity as a whole, the whole human species, has become the brain, the heart, the soul, the expression and the action of the Earth. We have now a world brain which determines what can be dangerous or mortal for the planet: the United Nations and its agencies, and innumberable (sic) groups and networks around the world, are part of the brain. This is our newly discovered meaning…we are a global family living in a global home. We are in the process of becoming a global civilization. I hope that religious leaders will get together and define before the end of this century the cosmic laws which are common to all their faiths. The third millennium should be a spiritual millennium, a millennium which will see the integration and harmony of humanity with creation, with nature, with the planet, with the cosmos and with eternity.”(26)

Muller’s vision is a little more than can be digested in a single bite. But it succinctly expresses the world view that underlies the NRPE agenda as well as the policy agenda of the United Nations.
Mikhail Gorbachev is an advocate of Muller’s world view. As recently as October 23, 1996, Gorbachev appeared on the popular Charlie Rose PBS television program where he said:

“We are part of the Cosmos…Cosmos is my God. Nature is my God…I believe that the 21st century will be the century of the environment, the century when all of us will have to find an answer to how to harmonize relations between man and the rest of Nature…We are part of Nature….”(27)

Both Muller’s and Gorbachev’s world view are an outgrowth of James Lovelock’s gaia hypothesis and Thomas Berry’s theological interpretations. Thomas Berry is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Temple of Understanding. The Florida Catholic describes Berry as “…perhaps the leading figure in the movement to preserve the environment.”(28) Berry believes that the world is being called to a new “post-denominational,” even a post-Christian belief system that sees the earth as a living being — mythologically, as Gaia, Mother Earth — with mankind as her consciousness.(29) It is difficult to grasp Berry’s theology, or more properly described — cosmolatry. He believes the world is experiencing a new enlightenment of a greater magnitude than Copernicus’ discovery that the earth actually revolved around the sun. He believes that the traditional Christian view of an external God who created man in His image is as wrong as the pre-Copernican view of the sun revolving around the earth. He is convinced that the earth itself is the life-giver, and that humans have no special place in the universal community of life which is, collectively, the manifestation of the divine.

This enlightenment is described by Brian Swimme, in his introduction to Berry’s book, The Dream of the Earth, by comparing Berry’s vision of cosmolatry to the moment in time when physical vision was experienced for the first time in evolutionary history. Berry himself says:

“It has taken the entire course of some fourteen billion years for the universe, the earth, and all its living creatures to attain this mode of presence to itself through our empirical modes of knowing. One of the finest moments in our new sensitivity to the natural world is our discovery of the earth as a living organism…awareness that the entire planet is a single organic reality that needs to be addressed in its spirit and person qualities as well as in its physical aspects.”(30)
Berry is also convinced that:

“This reenchantment with the earth as a living reality is the condition for our rescue of the earth from the impending destruction that we are imposing upon it. To carry this out effectively, we must now, in a sense, reinvent the human as species within the community of life species. Our sense of reality and of value must consciously shift from an anthropocentric to a biocentric norm of reference.”(31)

This conscious shift from an “anthropocentric” world view, to a “biocentric” world view is perhaps the most significant paradigm shift since monotheism overwhelmed pantheism four thousand years ago. And the shift is well under way.

Thomas Berry had a profound influence upon the Very Reverend James Parks Morton, President of the Temple of Understanding, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, co-chair of the Global Forum for Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders, and a member of the Board of Directors of the NRPE.

“Morton shares Berry’s belief that an ecological interpretation of the cosmos requires a corresponding re-interpretation of the story of creation. `The new scientific evidence about the origins of life made me realize that we could no longer deal with the human story as something apart from the life story, or the earth story, or the universe story,’ says Morton.”(32)

From his Cathedral of St. John the Divine, at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in New York City, the seat of a bishop in the Anglican Church, one of the largest religious denominations in the world, James Parks Morton is translating Berry’s cosmology into specific programs, rituals, and institutions. The NRPE is but one.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is also home to the Gaia Institute, “whose mission is to explore the practical implications of James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis,” directed by Paul and Julie Mankiewicz.(33) It is the home of the Lindesfarne Fellowship, a membership organization of influential world leaders who subscribe to Berry’s cosmology. Maurice Strong is a member and a frequent speaker at the Cathedral. Strong was the Secretary-General of both Earth Summit I and II, and was the first Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The Cathedral is also the home of the Feast of St. Francis.

This special ritual in this most unusual church epitomizes the cosmolatry of Thomas Berry. In the words of William Bryant Logan, editor of the Cathedral’s newsletter:

“I saw children lying in the laps of large dogs and a boy bringing his stuffed animals to be blessed. I saw the not-yet famous elephant and camel march up the aisle; a lawyer who scoops the poop and enjoys being clown-for-a-day; a priest who finds himself covered with wriggling ferrets; a man and a woman who meet when their leashes become enmeshed; a volunteer gardener marching to the altar with a bowl full of compost and worms; a sermon by Al Gore, in which he called on the congregants to recognize that `God is not separate from the Earth.'”(34)

The ritual is not limited to the New York Cathedral.

The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas and the Stewardship Office of the Episcopal Church sponsored a celebration of Earth Day in April, 1995 that featured, among others, James Parks Morton, Thomas Berry, and Paul Winter, official musician of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Samantha Smith, author of The Trojan Horse and Goddess Earth, attended the affair and offered the following report:
“The gathering, held at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, included a North American Native Indian praying to God, then praying to the Grandfather Spirit and to spirits of the Four Directions to bless the earth and oversee the conference. California Senator, Tom Hayden, offered an Earth Day prayer, claiming the earth was speaking through him: `On this Earth Day let us say an earth prayer and make an earth pledge. In the Bible ruah means both wind and spirit, so let us take time to breathe with the universe, connect with the earth and remember what we need to know and do. Celebrate that ancient spirits are born again in us, spirits of eagle vision, of coyote craft, of bear stewardship, of buffalo wisdom, of ancient goddesses, of druids, of native people, of Thoreau and Sitting Bull — born again and over again in John Muir and Rachel Carson and David Brower and Alice Walker.’ He then asked us to `commit ourselves to carry the written word of Al Gore into official deeds.’ Thomas Berry offered a prayer for the healing of the earth.”(35)
Paul Winter then entertained with his saxophone. He explained that he had gone into the Superior Forest and taped exchanges of howls between his saxophone and a wolf. With his sax, he demonstrated the sound. He then asked the audience to join him in a “Howl-le-lu-ia Chorus.” He made a wolf sound, and nearly 200 people howled back, expressing their oneness with the wolf.
This is the theology, or cosmology, which underlies the NRPE. These are the people who conceived the NRPE, and these are the people who are creating the material that is being delivered to 67,300 churches in America.

Gaia awakened

The gaia hypothesis, introduced by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (formerly, wife of Carl Sagan), is an ancient idea, presented in scientific-sounding language that makes it politically correct for the new age. The idea itself pre-dates the Christian era and even Greek mythology, from which the name gaia was taken. The idea is rooted in ancient cultures and, until Lovelock, was generally known as “paganism.”

“There are three principles of paganism:

1. animism — the belief that everything is imbued with a soul;

2. polytheism — the belief that many gods exist and each one has a function to preside over various aspects of nature and life;
and

3. pantheism — the belief that all things, animate and inanimate, including the earth and humans are manifestations of God, that God is all; the universe is totally God.”(36)

Some form of paganism was practiced by almost every known culture before the emergence of the Hebrews circa 2000 BC. Hebrew tradition rejected “many gods” in favor of the concept of “one God” – Yahweh. Out of this monotheistic tradition, Christianity was born, and in the third century, Constantine declared Christianity to be the official state religion of the Roman empire. Paganism faded, but did not die. In the jungles of Africa and the Americas, it continued untarnished by European influence. In Europe, paganism went underground, emerging periodically in the form of secret societies and eclectic writings. Despite persecution by the established church and proper society, secret pagan societies survived into the 20th century.

One of the more influential of those societies was the Theosophical Society, created in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.(37) Blavatsky’s two books, The Secret Doctrine and Iris Unveiled, articulate the pagan world view. A glimpse of Blavatsky’s view is revealed in Iris Unveiled: “Interference by man in this civilization can disrupt the life forces of nature and the occult. Only in countries where there is no civilization can the power of nature be found — the world’s soul.”(38) After Blavatsky’s death, Annie Besant and Alice Bailey assumed leadership of the society. Besant headed the more radical European branch, and Bailey led the movement in America until she established the Lucifer Publishing Company in the early 1900s. One of the earliest books published by Lucifer, was The Consciousness of the Atom, by Alice Bailey. It was a series of lectures delivered in New York City during the winter of 1921-1922. In the book’s Foreword, Bailey says:

“The purpose of this series was to present to their auditors the testimony of science as to the relation of matter and of consciousness; to enable the hearers to observe the identical manifestation of these relations and of certain basic laws in successively higher states of being, and thus to bring to them a realization of the universality of the evolutionary process and its actuality; and to deal somewhat with the nature of the expanded states of consciousness and the enlarged life toward which all mankind is traveling.”(39)

The name “Lucifer Publishing Company” was not well received in the early 1900s, so the name was changed to Lucis Publishing Company, but Bailey continued her prolific writing.
It is essential to understand Bailey’s world view in order to fully appreciate her influence on the individuals who organized and are advancing the NRPE and the agenda moving toward global governance. Here follows a series of excerpts from Bailey’s writings:
“…the problem with which the Hierarchy is now concerned is…to awaken all the nations…to the dramatic import of the present time…and thus to engineer a climax wherein the correct world lesson may be learnt; whereby the world may be purified by the elimination of the undesirable elements which hinder the new era and the upspringing of a more spiritual civilization; and whereby the forces of hate, of cruelty, of materialism and of darkness may be driven back (wherever found) before the sweeping onslaught of the Forces of Light…just as the Aquarian Age is coming into manifestation…bringing in its wake universal awareness and the new modes of expressing world synthesis, human interests, and the world religion….” (Alice Bailey, Esoteric Astrology, pp. 373-374.)

“…it is as one humanity, chastened and disciplined but illumined and fused, that we must emerge into the future. Those who do not grasp this important fact, whether they are what is called belligerents or neutrals, will suffer deeply as a result of their non-participation in the fate of the whole…. The Hierarchy is not neutral, it is one with the right element in every nation and set against all separative, isolationists and materialistic attitudes….” (Alice Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, 1939, p. 65.)

“Another fear which induces mankind to regard death as a calamity, is one which theological religion has inculcated, particularly the Protestant fundamentalists and the Roman Catholic Church, the fear of hell, the imposition of penalties, usually out of all proportion to the efforts of a lifetime, and the terrors imposed by an angry God. To these, man is told he will have to submit, and from them there is no escape, except through the vicarious atonement. There is, as you well know, no angry God, no hell, and no vicarious atonement…and the only hell is the earth itself, where we learn to work out our own salvation…. This teaching about hell is a remainder of the sadistic turn which was given to thinking of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages and to the erroneous teaching to be found in the Old Testament about Jehovah, the tribal God of the Jews! Jehovah is not God…. As the erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man’s recollection and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his own salvation…which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetuated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to clean his own slate.” (Alice Bailey, Esoteric Healing, p. 393.)(40)

Robert Muller is a devotee of Alice Bailey. The preface of the Robert Muller School World Core Curriculum Manual, November, 1986, says:

“The underlying philosophy upon which the Robert Muller School is based will be found in the teachings set forth in the books of Alice A. Bailey, by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul (published by Lucis Publishing Company, 113 University Place, 11th floor, New York, NY USA 10083).”(41) (The Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul, is said by Bailey to be an “ascended master” who speaks through her while she is in a trance).

The school is fully certified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a “participating institution in the UNESCO Associated Schools Project in Education for International Co-operation and Peace.”

Muller’s words take on a new relevance in light of his devotion to Bailey. Muller spoke at the University of Denver on March 30, 1995. He told his audience:

“…now we have a spiritual dimension entering the United Nations. I have seen how spirituality can help the poor. We are becoming a new species on this planet. The United Nations is the biological metaorganism of the human species. We have now the birth of a global nervous system. We are beginning to have a global heart, be it only our love for nature, to preserve this earth — this planet of ours — and we will also see the birth of a global soul. Whoever will understand that we are a part of the universe and of evolution — that we are cells of a total humanity. We should replace the word politics by planetics. We need the planetary management, planetary caretakers. We need global sciences. We need a science of a global psychology, a global sociology, a global anthropology.”(42)

Vice President, Al Gore, is seen by the contemporary pagan community to be one of their own. In Green Egg, the newsletter of the Church of All Worlds, whose mission is “to evolve a network of information, mythology and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea [gaia], and reuniting Her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship,” Otter Zell applauds the Clinton/Gore election victory. He says:
“We are Neo-pagans — implying an eclectic reconstruction of ancient Nature religions, and combining archetypes of many cultures with other mystic and spiritual disciplines — and our beliefs and values are no different from those you describe as your own. As you observed in your book, Earth in the Balance, the `best-documented tenet seems to have been a reverence for the sacredness of the Earth — and a belief in the need for harmony among all living things.’ Your book is heralded by our People as a manifesto of all we hold dear. In the last quarter-century a movement has grown up to reclaim that connectedness at the deepest and most spiritual level.

We are Gaians…. We have always agreed with James Lovelock…that this realization evokes a spiritual response. But we are not just trying to recreate a Paradise Lost; we are working to actualize a visionary future. We ask no special favors; we wish nothing more than that you be true to yourself, and to your own values and ideals as expressed in Earth in the Balance. Know that there are half a million American NeoPagans out here who support you, who voted for you, and who will rally to the aid of your policies for the salvation of the Earth and the reunification of the Great Family.”(43)

The literature of the NRPE, and of its partners, skillfully avoids direct linkage with the more overt statements of Alice Bailey and Otter Zell. The ideas, however, are clearly present. Read again the prayer by St. Basil the Great. The literature produced by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, an NRPE partner, says:

“We understand ourselves as partners in Creation, responsible for protecting the Earth’s ecological integrity and the common good. Judaism teaches us that consumerism should not be placed at the center of our lives, but rather the pursuit of justice, peace, and spiritual development. We are united in deep concern that the quality of human life and the earth we inhabit are in danger, afflicted by rapidly increasing ecological threats. Among the most pressing of these threats are: depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, massive deforestation, the extinction of species and loss of biodiversity…. Narrow private interests (such as the mining, timber, and petro-chemical industries, among others) have been building a movement to dismantle the environmental protections that we have come to take for granted….”(44)

While the literature hints at biocentric underpinnings, it is carefully written to avoid offending the Judeo-Christian community by denying its New Age characteristics, and fending off charges of paganism.

A starter-kit for Evangelical Churches says:

“What New Age followers don’t realize is that they love creation because they are actually seeing and experiencing the invisible attributes of God. Some even worship the creation because they do not know the Creator.”(45)
The Feast of St. Francis, with elephants, worms, dogs, and cats, brought to the altar to be blessed in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which houses the Gaia Institute and boasts of a “sacred ecology” wall that is decorated with rainforest flora, appears to be a ritual of worship focused on the creation rather than on the Creator.
The rituals in Kansas City, where Paul Winter led the congregants to “howl” in response to their “oneness with the wolf,” where prayers were offered to the “Four Directions,” and to the “spirits of eagle vision, coyote craft, of bear stewardship, of buffalo wisdom, of ancient goddesses, of druids…” certainly appear to be rituals of worship to entities other than to the Creator God of the Judeo-Christion tradition. Yet, the literature that is mailed to the churches says, “…the God we worship is beyond nature, rather than within nature.”(46)
This statement stands in stark contrast with James Lovelock’s “…she [Gaia] is the source of life everlasting and is alive now, she gave birth to humankind…;” with Thomas Berry’s “One of the finest moments in our new sensitivity…is our discovery of the…entire planet [as] a single organic reality that needs to be addressed in its spirit and person qualities…;” and with Al Gore’s “The earth is not separate from God.”
Christian leaders who support the NRPE ignore the paganistic rituals of the program’s founders and try to deflect charges of New Age. Richard Land, executive director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, one of the Christian denominations listed in the NRPE’s directory, told The New York Times, that “We make it very clear, we do not worship creation, we worship the God of creation.”(47)
The organizers of the NRPE have no problem with its members denying paganism and insisting that they worship the God of the Bible rather than gaia. To them, it makes no difference what name is applied to the object of worship, so long as individual behavior is modified to support laws and regulations that enforce behavior modification of the masses to conform with the tenets of biocentric paganism. In the final analysis, the religious context for the political activity is designed to draw a cloak of ethics and morality around the unethical, immoral distortion of scientific evidence which, when revealed, will crumble the foundation of the entire appeal.
Amy Elizabeth Fox, former coordinator of the Joint Appeal, and initial Associate Director of the NRPE said that “we began by thinking in terms of the four sacred elements: earth, air, fire and water.” She continued:
“‘We are required by our religious principles to look for the links between equity and ecology.’ In the materials that the Partnership has sent out to more than [67,300] congregations, the fundamental emphasis is on issues of environmental justice, including air pollution and global warming; water, food and agriculture; population and consumption; hunger, trade and industrial policy; community economic development; toxic pollution and hazardous waste; and corporate responsibility.”(48)
The biocentric philosophy of the gaia hypothesis which underlies the NRPE is being translated into public policy, now assisted by more than 100 million congregants under the influence of the NRPE.
The paradigm shift from anthropocentrism to biocentrism is increasingly evident in public policy and in the documents which emanate from the United Nations and from the federal government. Public policies are being formulated in response to biocentric enlightenment, rather than in response to scientific evidence. The picture of an imperiled planet, as described in the literature of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, rests upon three mythological expressions of biocentric enlightenment:

The idea of global warming entered the world in 1896 when Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, postulated that the elevation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would eventually result in global warming. The scientific community paid little attention. In the 1970s, Dr. Stephen Schneider, and others, postulated that elevated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was causing global cooling, and articles appeared that warned of a coming ice age. In 1971, Paul Ehrlich published:

“The continued rapid cooling of the earth since World War II is also in accord with the increased global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization, and an exploding population, added to a renewal of volcanic activity….”(49)

Science magazine’s March 1, 1975 issue said:

“According to the academy [National Academy of Sciences] report on climate, we may be approaching the end of a major interglacial cycle, with the approach of a full-blown 10,000-year ice age a real possibility…with ice packs building up relatively quickly from local snowfall that ceases to melt from winter to winter.”(50)

In the 1980s, global warming again became the rage. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) held a conference in Toronto and then created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Then-Senator Al Gore convened a hearing at which James Hansen testified that he believed the current heat wave was the first sign of anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming. In 1990, then-Senator Timothy Wirth (now Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs) said: “We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”(51) Richard Benedick, an employee of the State Department , said “A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the green house effect,”(52) And Dr. Stephen Schneider told a group of scientists, “We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”(53)

There is little or no reliable scientific data to support the global warming theory. The theory is based on computer models which the IPCC has revised downward three times since 1990. In November, 1995 world-renowned climatologists and other scientists met in Leipzig, Germany. The conference document they adopted, known as the Leipzig Declaration, says “…most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever. Based on the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the so-called “scientific consensus” that envisages climate catastrophes….”(54)

The NRPE literature sent to the churches makes a strong case for political action based on the global warming scare. A chart measuring the century-long increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is dramatically presented as the basis for the computer projections of global warming.(55) The publication failed to print, however, a diagram showing the actual global temperature during same the period. Those diagrams are readily available from a variety of legitimate scientific sources. They all reveal that the actual global temperature declined during the second half of the century, during the period of sharpest increases of carbon dioxide. Where the actual science fails to support the “enlightenment”, the science is ignored.

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an example of public policy that has been adopted on the basis of “enlightenment” rather than on the basis of scientific evidence.

The paradigm shift has moved away from the anthropocentric, and close enough to the biocentric world view, that the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) actually adopted the following principle as a part of the Rio Declaration:

“Principle 15: In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”(56)

As written and adopted, “threats” do not have to be verified or confirmed, simply declared. Global warming has been declared to be a “threat” by Al Gore and Timothy Wirth, both of whom were instrumental in organizing the NRPE, and by the United Nations organizations, on the basis of what can best be described as “biocentric enlightenment.”

Biological impoverishment

The notion of biological impoverishment stands on an even less-firm scientific foundation.

Through the media, movies, and textbooks, environmental organizations have painted a vivid picture in the public mind that tropical rain forests are disappearing, that biodiversity is being paved over, and that species are becoming extinct at a rate greater than at any time in history. The figure used in the Evangelical Environmental Network’s action alert (75 to 100 per day) is typical of the propaganda that is constantly repeated. Where do these ideas originate? How valid are they? An unusually frank analysis of the issue appeared in U.S. News & World Report. Here is an excerpt:
“…many oft-cited ‘facts’ used to paint a picture of impending ecological disaster are more myth than reality…. Although field studies had documented an extinction rate of only one species per year worldwide, in 1979 biologist Norman Myers [The Sinking Ark] predicted that the rate would balloon, with the loss of 1 million species by the end of the century. Myers offered no basis for his prediction other than to call it a ‘reasonable working figure’ [enlightenment?]. Nonetheless, the number received much attention and is still frequently cited by activists.”

“More recently, Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson has heavily publicized his claim that 4,000, or 30,000, or 50,000 species a year — he has used all three numbers at different times — are being driven to extinction. Such numbers, carrying the ring of scientific authority, have featured prominently in calls to action from environmental groups, and they played a persuasive part in the debate over the U.S. position on recent international treaties to slow deforestation and protect biodiversity.”(57)

Reason magazine quotes an unnamed “conservationist” who admitted that “the lack of data does worry me. I’m absolutely sure we’re right, but a gut feeling isn’t much backup when you’re asking people all over the world to change their lives completely.”(58)
Like the global warming myth, the biological impoverishment myth is based, not on scientific evidence, but on an “enlightened” declaration of a “threat” to the environment. The Lindesfarne Fellowship, founded by William Thompson and James Morton (President of the Temple of Understanding), published a book entitled G-A-I-A, A Way of Knowing: Political Implications of the New Biology. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis contributed to the book. Enlightenment is the “new way of knowing.” Enlightenment, as understood by the biocentric community, may be compared to the “conversion experience” of Christians. As the Christian is “born again” by his acceptance, or “belief,” the biocentric becomes “enlightened” by his acceptance, or belief in gaia as the giver of life. A major difference, however, is that the Christian accepts that he is subservient to the omnipotent giver of life, while the biocentric believes he is a part of the omnipotent giver of life, and therefore, a part of god; whatever he thinks, or believes, must be “enlightened.” Biological impoverishment is a “threat” declared by “enlightened” biocentrists.

Public policy has been formulated and is being implemented in response to the alleged threat, even though in reality, there is little or no scientific evidence to support the threat.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is a sweeping public policy formulated in response to the perceived threat of biological impoverishment. The Convention, often called the “Biodiversity Treaty,” was adopted in Rio de Janeiro at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. Then-President George Bush refused to sign the treaty, but Bill Clinton, shortly after he defeated Bush, signed the treaty and sent it to the Senate for ratification. Al Gore anticipated rapid ratification since the Senate was controlled by his political party, and began immediately to revise the policies of the Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency to implement the provisions of the treaty, despite the fact that the treaty never came to a vote in the Senate.

Behind the facade of “reinventing government,” Gore created a White House Task Force on Ecosystem Management. The task force oversaw the development of the Administration’s Ecosystem Management Policy which coordinates the activity of 20 federal agencies toward the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Perhaps the most significant shift in public policy is the shift away from implementing policies for the benefit of humans; the new Ecosystem Management Policy is designed to benefit biodiversity — at the expense of humans. Federal policy has shifted from anthropocentric to biocentric. The Environmental Protection Agency’s policy says: “EPA must make ecosystem protection a primary goal of the Agency, on a par with human health….”(59)

The Department of Interior ecosystem management policy statement says: “All ecosystem management activities should consider human beings as a biological resource.”(60) In the Clinton/Gore White House, the paradigm shift has already occurred. Public policy is being formulated based on the biocentric view that humans have no value greater than any other life forms.
The policies that have been and are being formulated to prevent biological impoverishment have much broader implications for the human community. The ultimate objective is to replace the 50 states with 21 “bioregions” where the human population is relocated into “sustainable communities” that occupy no more than 25 percent of the land area of North America, while half the land area is restored to “wilderness,” and the remaining 25 percent is managed collaboratively by the federal government and environmental organizations. This bizarre plan is met with, at best, skepticism, and most often, with utter disbelief — until the documentation is examined. The idea of bioregions originates in the enlightened minds of people such as Thomas Berry, Dave Foreman (Earth First! founder), and others. The public policy of bioregions originates in the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Convention itself is quite bland and even more ambiguous. For example, Article 8 says simply: “Each Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate: (a) Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity;” Since nearly 12 percent of North America is already protected by an extensive system of areas protected as National Parks and Monuments, wildlife refuge areas, and wilderness (more than 100 million acres), this particular Article should not present a problem to anyone. That is, until what the United Nations means by “a system of protected areas” is discovered.

Article 25(a) of the Convention calls for “assessments of the status of biological diversity” to be developed by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention. When the Conference of the Parties convened its first meeting in Naussau, November, 1994, it was presented with an 1140-page document entitled Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA), developed by the United Nations Environment Program over the previous three years with a $3.3 million grant from the UN’s Global Environment Facility.(61) More than 200 pages of the document are devoted to describing what is an acceptable “system of protected areas.”

Section 13 of the Global Biodiversity Assessment is entitled “Measures for Conservation of Biodiversity and Sustainable Use of its Components.” The “measure” described is the creation of bioregions and a system of protected areas. Here’s what it says:
“The protection and management of natural habitat fragments requires a reduction in the deleterious effects of matrix-derived influences [human activity] on remnants and an increase in the area and connectivity of habitat. This means that representative areas of all major ecosystems in a region need to be reserved, that blocks should be as large as possible, that buffer zones should be established around core areas, and that corridors should connect these areas. This basic design is central to the recently proposed Wildlands Project in the United States (Noss 1992)….”(62)
The Wildlands Project is a “land conservation strategy” developed by Dr. Reed F. Noss under contract with the National Audubon Society and The Nature Conservancy.(63) Noss says:

“I suggest that at least half of the land area of the 48 conterminous states should be encompassed in core reserves and inner corridor zones (essentially extensions of core reserves) within the next few decades…. Nonetheless, half of a region in wilderness is a reasonable guess of what it will take to restore viable populations of large carnivores and natural disturbance regimes, assuming that most of the other 50 percent is managed intelligently as buffer zone. Eventually, a wilderness network would dominate a region…with human habitations being the islands.”(64)

A review of the Wildlands Project, published in Science magazine, June 25, 1993, said: “It is nothing less than the transformation of America to an archipelago of human-inhabited islands surrounded by natural areas.”

The Wildlands Project is being implemented in America through the Administration’s Ecosystem Management Policy, in compliance with an unratified treaty developed by the United Nations, in response to an unsubstantiated “threat” declared by a small group of biocentric, enlightened elite.

In his essay, Bioregions: The Context for Reinhabiting the Earth, Thomas Berry says:

“The most difficult transition to make is from an anthropocentric to a biocentric norm of progress. The solution is simply for us as humans to join the earth community as participating members, to foster the progress and prosperity of the bioregional communities to which we belong. A bioregion is an identifiable geographical area of interacting life systems that is relatively self-sustaining in the ever-renewing processes of nature. Such a bioregion is a self-propagating, self-nourishing, self-educating, self-governing, self-healing, and self-fulfilling community. For humans to assume rights to occupy land by excluding other lifeforms from their needed habitat is to offend the community in its deepest structure. Further, it is even to declare a state of warfare, which humans cannot win….”(65)

Dave Foreman shares Berry’s view:

“All of us are warriors on one side or another in this war; there are no sidelines, there are no civilians. Ours is the last generation that will have the choice of wilderness, clean air, abundant wildlife, and expansive forests. The crisis is that severe (emphasis in original). It is not enough to protect our few remaining bits of wilderness. The only hope for Earth is to withdraw huge areas as inviolate natural sanctuaries from the depredations of modern industry and technology, …identify big areas that can be restored to a semblance of natural conditions, reintroduce the Grizzly Bear and wolf and prairie grasses, and declare them off limits to modern civilization.”(66)

Dave Foreman not only co-founded Earth First!, he is Chairman of the Cenozoic Society, Chairman of the Wildlands Project, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club, which published a special edition of Sierra in 1994 which proposed replacing the 50 states with 21 bioregions.

The cosmology of Thomas Berry, James Parks Morton, and Robert Muller, all officers of the Temple of Understanding, is being translated into public policy with the aid of 100 million congregants who respond to the “action alerts” generated by the NRPE.

Excessive population

The third expression of biocentric enlightenment which drives the global environmental agenda is the notion that population growth has exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity. This idea was exploited by Malthus (1766-1834), and has been dredged up periodically by the likes of Paul Ehrlich, who in 1968 wrote The Population Bomb. Ehrlich advanced three scenarios, in two of which, human populations were devastated as the result of overpopulation. In the third scenario, an “enlightened” government imposed severe population control measures and spared the planet.(67) Both Ehrlich and E.O. Wilson are a part of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and are advisors to the NRPE. The exponential increase in population is given as the reason for biological impoverishment, and therefore, population must be reduced forcefully by governments. Jaques Cousteau wrote in a UNESCO publication:
“It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.”(68)
The myth of excessive population, like the myths of global warming and biological impoverishment, are deeply instilled in the public mind and in official public policy. The Global Biodiversity Assessment, has concluded:

“…an agricultural world, in which most human beings are peasants, should be able to support 5 to 7 billion people…a reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be one billion. At the more frugal European standard of living, 2-3 billion would be possible.”(69)

The current global population is approximately 5.8 billion.
Again, the conclusions reached about the earth’s carrying capacity are based on enlightenment rather than on science. Colin Clark, former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University, conducted studies which indicate that by using “best methods,” enough food could be produced to provide an American-type diet for 35.1 billion people. In Clark’s estimate, no more than half the land area would be used for agriculture. Roger Revelle, former director of the Harvard Center of Population Studies, estimated that world agricultural resources are capable of providing an adequate diet (2,500 kilocalories per day), as well as fiber, rubber, tobacco and beverages, for 40 billion people, using 25 percent of the land area.(70) A simple calculation that divides the global population by the 262,000 square miles of Texas, reveals that the entire global population would fit nicely into that state, with the average family of four having space approximately the size of an urban building lot.

The claim that population is exploding is also a myth. The fact is that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is declining world wide. In developing countries, where the problem is said to be most severe, the TFR reflects a 45-year decline, down from 6.1 in 1950, to 3.9 currently. In developed countries, the rate is below zero growth. A TFR of 2.1 is generally accepted as population stability. In America, the rate is 2.0; in Europe, 1.6; in Japan, 1.5; in Spain and Italy, the rate is 1.3.(71)

The shift from an anthropocentric world view to a biocentric world view is almost complete in America, and throughout the world. While the biocentric view is clearly based on a religious, rather than scientific foundation, its advocates strive to avoid the appearance of pagan religious motivation. The ideas are presented in the form of public policy proposals to protect the environment, justified on the basis of morality and ethics, rather than on the basis of sound science. Science itself, is being diluted by advocates, who use science not to discover truth, but to “prove” preconceived ideas which have arrived as the result of biocentric “enlightenment.” The Union of Concerned Scientists is led by people who are first advocates of the biocentric world view, and who also happen to be scientists. E.O Wilson, Paul Ehrlich, Carl Sagan, Stephen Schneider, Robert Watson, and others frequently ignore scientific evidence that fails to support their agenda, and, as in the NRDC studies that spawned the Alar scare, misrepresent evidence to advance their agenda. Thomas Berry openly advocates expanding the “enlightenment” process in the scientific arena:

“We must awaken a consciousness of the sacred dimension of the earth. We have treated the nonhuman world as object for exploitation rather than as subject to be communed with. Yet the soil is a magic place where the alchemy takes place that enables living forms to survive. Even Paleolithic humans knew this. We feel that the scientist must participate to some extent in shamanic powers. We might say that the next phase of scientific development will require above all the insight of shamanic powers.”(72)

Advocates of biocentrism realize that Americans, raised under the influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition, would resist a missionary attempt to convert Christians to paganism. Therefore, rather than seek converts to a religion, they seek public policy to modify behavior of individuals to conform to the tenets of their religion while calling the result of the transformation the emergence of a new “earth ethic.”

Our Global Neighborhood, the official report of the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance, refers to this new “earth ethic,” as a “global civic ethic” to guide action within the “global neighborhood.” “People have to see with new eyes and understand with new minds before they can truly turn to new ways of living. That’s why global values must be the cornerstone of global governance.”(73) The Commission on Global Governance believes that the world is now ready to accept “a set of core values that can unite people of all cultural, political, religious, or philosophical backgrounds. They all derive in one way or another from the principle, which is in accord with religious teachings around the world….”(74) Central to this set of “core values” is the idea of the sacredness of earth and all its life forms.

The Global Biodiversity Assessment reports that primitive (indigenous) people who were hunter/gatherers, viewed “themselves as members of a community that not only includes other humans, but also plants and animals as well as rocks, springs and pools.” Consequently, biological communities evolved as “sacred sites” which afforded some measure of protection.(75)
This perception of the earth as a “sacred” community of life is the core value which, when fully appreciated by humans, will allow them to embrace the draconian restrictions proposed by the emerging public policies called for in the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Climate Change, and in other international agreements.

If children are taught from an early age that the earth is the sacred giver of life, that all life forms are of equal value, that humans who reject that idea are immoral, or unethical, then their vision of the earth will be substantially different from the vision that evolved through the Judeo-Christian tradition. In fact, Christianity is identified as the culprit most responsible for the degradation of the planet.

“Societies dominated by Islam, and especially by Christianity, have gone farthest in setting humans apart from nature and in embracing a value system that has converted the world into a warehouse of commodities for human enjoyment. In the process, not only has nature lost its sacred qualities; conversion to Christianity has meant an abandonment of an affinity with the natural world for many forest dwellers, peasants, fishers all over the world. These people followed their own religious traditions which included setting apart between 10 and 30 percent of the landscape as sacred groves and ponds. Most of these people were drawn into the larger market economy and converted to Christianity by the late 1950s. On so converting to a religious belief system that rejects assignment of sacred qualities to elements of nature, they began to cut down the sacred groves to bring the land under cultivation, as well as to market rattan and timber.”(76)

This sentiment is buried on page 839 of an 1140 document entitled Global Biodiversity Assessment, where very few church-goers are likely to see it. Rather than to denounce Christianity publicly, the strategy is to infiltrate Christian churches and Jewish synagogues and enlist their support to enact laws and regulations to ostensibly “protect the environment,” but which will in actuality coercively modify the behavior of individuals to conform to the belief system described by Thomas Berry, James Parks Morton, and the other instigators of the NRPE.

Behavior modification is the goal, not just for Christians and Jews, but for the entire human race. In his book, Earth in the Balance, Al Gore articulates both the principle and the means:

“I have come to believe that we must take bold and unequivocal action: we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization. Adopting a central organizing principle — one agreed to voluntarily — means embarking on an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action — to use, in short, every means to halt the destruction of the environment and to preserve and nurture our ecological system. Minor shifts in policy, marginal adjustments in ongoing programs, moderate improvements in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change — these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle, and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary.”(77)

Al Gore’s passionate plea to reorganize civilization around the principle of “environmental protection,” is well underway. And while he suggests that the “wrenching transformation” should be voluntarily agreed to, he is advancing regulations, laws, and international agreements to force behavior modification, often without prior knowledge by the individuals affected, and certainly without their voluntary agreement. Gore has maximized the influence of his position as a Senator, and as Vice President, to implement the tenets of biocentric paganism through domestic policy. But it is the international community, particularly the United Nations system, that generates the policies that are being implemented in nations around the world.
The Temple of Understanding is an accredited NGO (non-government organization) of the United Nations. Temple literature boasts:

“The Temple of Understanding is a Non-Government Organization affiliated with the United Nations. In cooperation with the Pacem in Terris Society of the United Nations staff, we sponsor monthly roundtables at the United Nations Headquarters featuring outstanding religious leaders and scholars. The Temple of Understanding is working on a conference to incorporate the role of spiritual values at the United Nations and as part of the emerging new world order.”(78)

A major link between the Temple of Understanding and the United Nations comes in the person of Maurice Strong.

Strong, a frequent speaker at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, was the Secretary-General of the first Earth Summit in 1972. He was the first Director of the United Nations Environment Programme. He was the Secretary-General of Earth Summit II in Rio in 1992. He is the founder of the Earth Council, Chair of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, co-chair of the World Economic Forum, a member of the UN’s Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development, a member of the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance, and a member of the Lindesfarne Fellowship, housed at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.(79)

Among Strong’s world-wide holdings is a 63,000 acre Colorado ranch called the Baca Grande. It is a mecca for mystics. The ranch is home to a group called Disciples of the XVI Gyalwa Karmapa, a strain of Tibetan Buddhism. Shirley MacLaine planned to build her New Age Center at Baca, but locals resisted the idea of a resort. A group of Carmelites built the Spiritual Life Institute, a co-ed monastery for silent contemplation. The Disciples of Babaji, an Indian Guru, celebrate Hindu rituals in a $175,000 solar-powered, gold-domed, adobe temple which features an alabaster statue of Murti, the Divine Mother, built by the Lindesfarne Fellowship. There is a temple for Sufis, and another for Taoists. Still another group was blocked by county officials who quickly enacted a building height restriction when it was learned that the group intended to build a 46-story pink granite pyramid in compliance with instructions received from an intergalactic leader named Commander Kuthumi who was channeling from the planet Arturus. Strong and wife Hanne see the Baca Grande as the “Vatican City” of the new world order.(80)

Strong uses his influence with the United Nations in the same way Al Gore uses his influence in the White House. Both are using governments to implement laws which force behavioral conformity to the tenets of their biocentric, pagan-gaia belief system.
The Convention on Biological Diversity seeks to convert half of North America to core wilderness areas off limits to human beings. Although the treaty is not yet ratified, the White House Task Force on Ecosystem Management is implementing the provisions of the treaty administratively.

The President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) has issued its final report (Sustainable America: A New Consensus, February, 1996), which sets forth a Plan of Action with 154 “action items” to transform cities and towns into “sustainable communities,” designed to conform with the UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II).(81)

The UN’s Vienna Convention on Ozone Depleting Substances, and its subsequent Montreal Protocol, have already banned CFC’s (freon and halons) in America, which has dramatically increased the cost of refrigeration and air-conditioning and eliminated an important fire-fighting material.

The UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change is currently developing a Protocol which will have the effect of increasing the cost and reducing the availability of electricity, gasoline, and all fossil-fuel-generated energy. The Protocol is scheduled for adoption in 1997. The United States has ratified this treaty and Timothy Wirth (Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs), has announced the U.S. government will accept legally binding timetables and targets for the reductions — even before it is known what those reductions will cost or what the timetables and targets will be.
The UN’s Convention on the Law of the Seas declares the non-territorial seas to be “global commons” under the authority of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) which has the authority to impose global taxation on the use of the global commons. An $85-million headquarters facility is under construction in Hamburg, Germany, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali has selected 21 justices to oversee the treaty’s implementation.(82) The treaty is in force and Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, has announced that U.S. ratification would be a high priority for the second term of a Clinton/Gore Administration.(83)

The UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child identifies the “rights” of children, which, if not provided by parents, must be provided by the state, enforced by the UN. Those “rights” include the right to privacy, the right to associate with whomever the child wishes, the right to birth control, and a host of other so-called rights that could no longer be determined by the parent. The treaty actually strips authority for child-rearing from parents and gives it to the government, with the UN setting the guidelines and having ultimate enforcement authority. This treaty, too, is on Warren Christopher’s “high priority” list. The treaty has been ratified by 169 nations. The U.S. is one of 8 nations that has signed, but not ratified the treaty. (84)

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) grants the “right” to housing to all women in the world. Each nation is required to provide housing, with the ultimate authority vested in the UN. Developed nations are expected to pay the cost of securing this right to women in undeveloped nations.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization is developing a Convention on Food Security that would grant the “right” to a full stomach to every citizen on earth. Each nation would be required to secure the “right” with developed nations again, expected to pay the costs of feeding people in developing nations.

These are only a few of the hundreds of treaties and international agreements either now in force or rapidly making their way into international law. The ratification of the World Trade Organization Charter (WTO) by the 103rd Congress gives the United Nations — for the first time in its history — the enforcement mechanism necessary to actually enforce these treaties and agreements. The WTO has the authority to impose trade sanctions upon nations, or upon industries within nations, for non-compliance with international treaties. A Subsidiary body of the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change treaty, charged with developing an enforcement mechanism, has identified the WTO as the favored and most effective enforcement tool.(85)

Enforcement of international treaties by the United Nations is becoming even more effective as global governance plans move forward. One of the recommendations of the Commission on Global Governance is the creation of a new International Court of Criminal Justice which would have its own panel of prosecutors with the authority to investigate inside the borders of any sovereign state. An official “Preparatory Committee on the International Criminal Court” has been created and held its second session in New York, August 12-30, 1996.

Another recommendation of the Commission on Global Governance is the creation of a new Economic Security Council, under which the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Global Environment Facility, and the World Trade Organization would be consolidated. The purpose is to create a global currency under the control of the United Nations. One of the 20 global taxation schemes is to tax international currency exchange. Revenue estimates project a yield of $1.5 trillion per year, 150 times more than the total UN budget. This tax alone would produce two and a half times the $600 billion per year estimated to be the cost of implementing Agenda 21, adopted in Rio in 1992. This new structure and taxing scheme are the vehicles for redistributing the wealth of developed countries to the developing countries. This process is called “equity,” and “social justice.”

Equity and social justice are among the “core values” the Commission on Global Governance believes the world is now ready to embrace:

“Justice and equity are essential human values. Respect for them is indispensable for peace and progress, as their absence can give rise to resentment and be destabilizing. Although people are born into widely unequal economic and social circumstances, great disparities in their conditions or life chances are an affront to the human sense of justice. A concern for equity is not tantamount to an insistence on equality, but it does call for deliberate efforts to reduce gross inequalities…and to promote a fairer sharing of resources.”(86)
Redistribution of wealth is necessary, according to the Commission on Global Governance, to achieve what is called the “security of the people.”

The United Nations was created to promote national security by reducing the risk of war between and among nations, through a forum provided by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council. Now, the UN is expanding its definition of security: “The security of people recognizes that global security extends beyond the protection of borders, ruling elites, and exclusive state interests to include the protection of people.”(87) Security of the people is said to include safety from chronic threats such as hunger, disease, and repression, as well as protection from sudden and harmful disruptions in the patterns of daily life — such as the loss of a job or catastrophic illness. The Commission lists the principles that must be adopted to provide “security of the people:”

“The world needs to translate these concepts of security into principles for the post-cold war era that can be embedded in international agreements:

All people, no less than all states, have a right to a secure existence, and all states have an obligation to protect those rights;
The primary goals of global security policy should be to prevent conflict and war and to maintain the integrity of the planet’s life-support systems by eliminating the economic, social, environmental, political, and military conditions that generate threats to the security of people and the planet, and by anticipating and managing crises before they escalate into armed conflicts.
Military force is not a legitimate political instrument, except in self-defence or under UN auspices.

The development of military capabilities beyond that required for national defence and support of UN action is a potential threat to the security of people.

The production and trade in arms should be controlled by the international community.”(88)

An extremely important change in the function, purpose, and methods of the United Nations is represented in the following statements:

“We do think…that it is necessary to assert…the rights and interests of the international community in situations within individual states in which the security of the people is violated extensively. We believe a global consensus exists today for a UN response on humanitarian grounds in cases of gross abuse of the security of people.”(89) (Emphasis added).

In other words, the Commission on Global Governance believes the world is now ready to grant to the UN the authority to enter the sovereign borders of any nation to guarantee the “security of people” as defined by the “rights” expressed in the various international treaties and agreements.

This notion is a major expansion of authority for the United Nations. This is the essence of global governance. This is the mechanism being developed to force individual humans to modify their behavior to conform to the tenets of the underlying belief system demonstrated by the organizers of the NRPE. Churches are being recruited through the NRPE to support political agendas designed to expedite the objectives of global governance. The paradigm shift is being called an appropriate response to an emerging global “earth ethic.”

It is not a coincidence that the recommendations offered by the Commission on Global Governance closely parallel the policies of socialist countries. Many of the architects of the global agenda are socialists. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Chair of the UN Commission on Environment and Development that produced the 1987 report, Our Common Future, was Vice President of the World Socialist Party. Maurice Strong is closely alligned with the Socialist Party of Canada. Most of the power-brokers responsible for the development of the global agenda have their roots in socialist governments or in the century-long effort to achieve a world government. The global governance agenda seeks to establish a world-wide system of governance in which the state (the United Nations) is the omnipotent authority which establishes policy that is implemented by national governments, enforced by the ultimate power of the United Nations either by taxation, trade sanctions, or as a last resort, by consolidated military action.

Few of the 100 million congregants that are being influenced by the NRPE have any idea of the massive agenda behind the “action alerts” to which they respond. Indeed, most of the pastors, priests, and rabbis who respond to the NRPE have no idea that they are being used to advance a global governance agenda. Most sincerely believe that they are taking responsible action to help protect the environment. Until the evidence is reviewed, there is no way that the average church-goer could possible realize the sinister objectives of those who organized the program.

The organizers — James Parks Morton, James Lovelock, Robert Muller, Al Gore, Timothy Wirth, and many, many others — have been “enlightened” through their biocentric belief in gaia, and, therefore, they know what is best for the planet. They also know that the only way to protect the sacred gaia, is to control the people who are degrading her. The only way to control the people is through an omnipotent government that is, at this moment, consolidating its power into an evergrowing bureaucracy, now stretching around the globe, extending its tentacles into every corner of human life, creating de facto global governance. The National Religious Partnership for the Environment has reached into 67,300 churches and is drawing those congregations into the lair.